The McGrath's Kitchen blog is a meeting place for families alike who enjoy cooking together! The scope of my blog is to share recipes with others who like me cook everyday & care for the health of their family. I encourage people to buy local & in season. My scope is to learn from other mother's & homemakers. This is a loving blog where we share what has worked best for us. So folks lets get ready to cook, and why not have a glass of wine while doing it :) xSara

Thursday, 18 August 2011

First of all I would like to thank everyone for your comments, and Sue I am happy you found the recipe easy to follow, as that was one of my main concerns. I realized that there is a lot to blogging and I am cooking every dish right before posting it, so it’s fresh in my head and I can take pictures. I don’t like recipes with out pictures because I myself like seeing what the dish is supposed to look like and with more complicated recipes it’s nice to see how it should be presented.

I mentioned in my previous post that one of the things I encourage is to buy local. Recently on the radio I have been listening to discussions about the orange crisis in Australia and the importance of supporting our Aussie farmers. The emphasis was on the record-low prices, the threat of importing oranges and how this impacts the local producers. Since one of my goals is to buy local, as much as possible, I hope this salad inspires you to do so as well .

Being from Sicily, a land famous for its citrus industry, there are many dishes that include oranges. I remember this salad as a great side dish to grilled chicken, a summer favorite.

So now, not only am I thinking of how I can help my local Aussie farmers, but I have been transported back to those beautiful hot Sicilian summers where as a kid I was happy as could be : )

Once you have purchased as many kilos of oranges as you can, because yes we should have fresh squeezed orange juice, its just better...here is a salad that will hopefully not only be yummy but help out the Aussie Orange Farmers!!!!!

This dish is rich in Vitamin C, good to keep those colds at bay!!

Ingredients for the Savory Orange Salad:

4 oranges

1 bulb of fennel - optional if you don’t like the taste of it, it is not a must (when buying fennel best to purchase the ones that are more round in shape as opposed to the narrower ones, I think they are the males and they taste better)

3 tomatoes

1/2 red onion

1 avocado

Black olives - sliced (as many as you like)

Ingredients for the Vinaigrette:

Salt & Pepper

Olive oil

Garlic salt

Red wine vinegar

Fresh oregano

Cut the oranges and tomatoes thick. The onions and fennel into half moons. I like my onions thinly sliced and the fennel too, but cut them just a bit thicker than the onions. Mix them together and throw the olives in.

I serve the avocado separate and allow everyone to put on as much as they like. I don’t mix it in because when you toss the salad it can make it mushy.

Ingredients for the Sweet Chili Chicken:

500 grams of organic chicken breast or tenderloins (sorry but I only use organic chicken as I have seen too many documentaries on chickens to not do so)

Sweet chili sauce - oops I don’t have my own recipe yet, but I like to use the MAE PLOY (all the local super markets carry it, if you have an Asian specialty store near your house even better, or use any other sweet chili sauce you like)

Soy sauce (I use low sodium)

You can add red chili flakes if you want it extra spicy.

Place the chicken in a bowl to marinate with the sweet chili sauce and the soy sauce. I would say that the chicken has to be covered evenly by the sauces. Let this marinate for as long as you like. The longer you leave the chicken to marinate the better, but if you don’t have that much time do the salad first and it will be ready by then (unless you chop at the speed of lightning.)

Place some olive oil in a frying pan and when the oil is a bit hot throw the chicken in with all the sauce...I like to cook mine on medium to semi high heat until the chicken browns. Watch out at the end that the pan doesn’t get too hot and the chilly sauce starts to carbonize. I cooked it for max 7 minutes and it was ready.

Ingredients for the Strawberry Rosey Red Orange Salad

300 grams of strawberries

2 rosey red oranges

4 tea spoons of brown sugar

Lemon juice - from 1/2 a lemon

Orange juice - from 1/2 an orange

Mint

Cut the oranges and strawberries, squeeze the lemon juice and orange juice. Sprinkle the brown sugar and add the chopped or whole mint in a bowl...MIX MIX TOSS TOSS!!!